


the who of me

by hollyandvice (hiasobi_writes)



Series: Holly's Round Eight H/C Bingo Card [9]
Category: Prisoners of Peace Series - Erin Bow
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 17:10:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11384664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiasobi_writes/pseuds/hollyandvice
Summary: Xie stirs beside her, and Greta reaches out to rest her hand on Xie's hip. Xie blinks slowly, not returning to slumber as Greta had intended, but waking, slowly, as though from a beautiful dream. She blinks a few times, her eyes slowly focusing on Greta's features, and a soft smile creeps over her face.As Greta lies with Xie the night before her transformation, she wonders at what it means to be human.





	the who of me

As she lies with Xie, Greta can't help but wonder at what tomorrow will bring. For all that she's been in the grey room, seen what it holds, she can't help but wonder exactly what it will entail. The Abbot seems to regard the room and the memory of becoming AI with some apprehension, a kind of nervousness in his motions as he speaks about it. Greta does not think she's seen the Abbot afraid aside from the moment before the Cumberlanders had— but she can't think of that, still too stunned at what they had done to her beloved teacher.

There's still an ache in her hands, even dulled as it is by drugs and what little treatment the Abbot and— the Abbot had given her. She can feel blood pulsing in them, and if she gets one thing out of this transformation, perhaps it will be the ability to ignore the small inconveniences of having a human brain. Things like distractibility and action recall and an inability to track time.

Things like pain.

Pain is the body's way of telling the brain that there is something wrong, even when there is nothing that the conscious mind can do about it. Perhaps, with her new brain, these signals can be altered. Interrupted. Stopped. Perhaps with her new brain, the pain won't be as bad.

Greta turns her head, watching Xie as she sleeps.

But then, what is joy without pain to counter it? If she can no longer feel the pain of her human body, how long will it be until she can no longer feel the pain of separation from her loved ones? How long until she chooses Talis' path of total disconnect from reality, and hides away in the Red Mountains as he does? How long until she loses all semblance of humanity?

How long until she forgets Xie?

Greta closes her eyes, reaching a hand up to touch her roughly-shorn hair, feeling even as she tries to forget the sensation of Xie cutting away at the hair she'd long cherished. It is the first thing she has lost in Talis' service, but will not, she thinks, be the last. His talk of skinning had been positively terrifying, the haunted look on the face he wore making it clear that this was not something to take lightly. Indeed, Talis talked of skinning as anyone else might talk of death itself.

Perhaps because, in its own way, it is a kind of death.

Xie stirs beside her, and Greta reaches out to rest her hand on Xie's hip. Xie blinks slowly, not returning to slumber as Greta had intended, but waking, slowly, as though from a beautiful dream. She blinks a few times, her eyes slowly focusing on Greta's features, and a soft smile creeps over her face. She tilts her head forward, kissing Greta even as her mind seems thick with sleep. Greta returns the kiss in turn, but the moment she begins to respond, Xie seems to take stock of herself, realizing what it is that has finally driven Greta to her bed. Xie draws back, her eyes searching Greta's face as though to memorize its shape and form, everything about it embedding itself in her memory.

"Greta," she breathes, and Greta closes her eyes at the sound of her name.

Greta knows what she wants to say, knows what she _needs_ to say too, but neither of those will change a thing about what awaits her in just a few hours. So she holds her tongue, leaning forward, and lets her body say what her words cannot.

_I'm scared,_ she doesn't say. _I don't know if I will survive this._

Xie already knows, and saying it won't take away her fear.

_I love you,_ she doesn't say. _I don't know how to live without you._

Xie already knows, and saying it will only make leaving her even more difficult.

Greta holds her tongue, ever the Precepture child, and she will go to the grey room as a Precepture child, tall and certain and royal in her stature, even as her soul trembles and shakes. She is ever the Precepture child, and Talis can take much from her, but he cannot take this. Her life, her home, her country, her people. Talis can take her life, but these are things that Talis cannot take. These are the core of her, and she will hold them ever in her heart and mind, whatever he may try to take from her.

Greta opens her eyes to see Xie still watching her, as though holding onto every moment they have left between them.

Talis can take her life, can change her mind to AI, can mold her everything to suit his needs, but this? This will ever be hers.

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed. I also don't have The Scorpion Rules with me at the moment, so there may some discrepancies between this fic and canon. My apologies!!
> 
> [Come hang with me on tumblr!](http://hollyandvice.tumblr.com/)


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